Scientists work on tsunami alert system for Med

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Massive waves crashed into the eastern coast of Japan after last week’s 8.9 earthquake. The tsunami killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Scientists in Europe are convinced this scenario could happen closer to home. They have been working on an early warning system for countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The region along the Turkish coast in the Eastern Mediterranean is considered the most vulnerable. Turkish geophysicist Ahmet Yalciner from the University of Ankara classed the risk as “very serious.” He is the local coordinator of an European Union research project aimed at better understanding tsunami processes in the Euro-Mediterranean region. He said: “The Turkish city of Fethiye is located near the fault zone in the Hellenic Arc. Hellenic Arc is a subduction zone, where the African Plate slides under the Aegean Plate. We have found that there are several similarities between this Hellenic Arc and the Sunda Arc near Sumatra, that caused the 2004 tsunami in South East Asia. We need to apply those similarities to this region. We need to understand the mechanisms that generate tsunamis” Computer animation shows a tsunami after an underwater earthquake close to Fethiye. Thirty teams from all over Europe have used the graphics to better develop strategies to protect people in the region. That research is being coordinated from further down the coast, in Bologna, Italy. Professor Stefano Tinti, a geophysicist from the University of Bologna, analyses all the data from the different control stations around Europe. He and his team hope that their work will lead to the construction of an Early Warning System that, ideally, would let people know a tsunami was forming in just 20 minutes. He said: “Tsunamis happened in the Mediterranean in the past, so they will happen again in the future. And today we have no way of protecting people from a tsunami. The only solution is to create a Tsunami Warning System in the Mediterranean, similar to the one that already exists in the Pacific and the one that is under construction in the Indian Ocean.” Innovative algorithms and programmes have been developed to assess the risks for vulnerable European shores. The aim is to help people to react faster in the case of an eventual catastrophe. Stefano Tinti added: “We have developed comprehensive scenarios. Our simulations help us understand the main characteristics of the tsunamis. We can better understand the strength of the tsunami waves, so, for instance, we can predict if the buildings on the coasts will be able to resist them. “We can also predict which are the best ways for people to escape. We can predict which buildings, bridges and so on would be flooded by the waves and which ones would not.” To achieve this, international cooperation is vital. Back in Fethiye geophysicist Ahmet Yalciner – a longtime collaborator with Stefano Tinti – is visiting one of the seismic stations, which overlooks the city and its harbour. Here, seismometers constantly survey the situation, registering the slightest tremors. Low-level seismic activity is quite common in the region and that is why Fethiye and its surroundings are a perfect place for the TRANSFER project. Ahmet Yalciner explained: “We are going to apply the model and understand the probabilities of tsunamis’ impacts. We are going to better understand the effects of local tsunamis both in Fethiye and in nearby Rhodes.